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Last week intentionally gullible (frightful if they actually buy what they are writing) apologists for the Obama Justice Department proclaimed that the New Black Panther Party (NBPP) scandal was really nothing at all. You see, the Justice Department’s own Office of Personal Responsibility (OPR) had given the department a clean bill of health! Aside from the obvious hypocrisy — would a Bush self-investigation be given credence by such Obama cheerleaders? — there are multiple grounds for dismissing this as another effort at stonewalling in a scandal that has had many such examples. None of these concern the left (whether those...

On January 26 , I asked whether the fix was in at the Justice Department in its internal investigation of the New Black Panther Party case. Unfortunately, it looks as if the answer is a resounding “yes.” Over Christmas, Attorney General Eric Holder appointed left-wing Democratic-party loyalist Robin Ashton to head up the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), which is supposed to investigate ethics violations by DOJ lawyers. At the same time, Holder announced in the New York Times that those who dismissed the voter-intimidation lawsuit the DOJ had won did the right thing. Former attorney general Michael Mukasey...

The Civil Rights Division has blocked a much-needed reform of a local school board in S.C., once again showing it has no interest in protecting minority voters if they are white. The Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department has done it again. Under the supervision of scandal-plagued Deputy Assistant Attorney General Julie Fernandes, the Division has blocked a much-needed reform of a local school board in Fairfield County, S.C. It’s the latest example of what happens when you put a civil rights enforcement unit under a political appointee who opposes race-neutral enforcement of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Aided...

President Obama and Harry Reid have used their appointment powers to stop the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights' investigation into the New Black Panther Party voter-intimidation case. (Don't miss James Poulos' PJTV interview with von Spakovsky and J. Christian Adams from CPAC.) For a while, at least, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights was investigating the Justice Department’s race-based decision to dismiss the New Black Panther Party voter-intimidation case — a case DOJ had effectively won. But now President Obama and Harry Reid have used their appointment powers to stop the investigation. Never mind the incontrovertible (and mounting) evidence that...

Last week, a federal district court heard arguments in a case brought by Shelby County, Ala., challenging the constitutionality of significant parts of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The case may reshape American politics. At issue is the law requiring the attorney general to approve every single change touching on elections in some but not all states. Little-noticed behavior of the Justice Department makes it more likely the U.S. Supreme Court could invalidate the 45-year-old law, assuming the high court is aware of the offending behavior. Section 5 forces nine states and parts of seven others to submit every...

Attorney General Eric Holder and his minions, along with some of their slavish apologists in the media, are deliberately trafficking in lies of great note. They prevaricate with great enthusiasm, and they excuse lawlessness with fierce disdain. They -- both the Department of Justice (DOJ) officials and their leftist amanuenses pretending to be journalists -- brazenly ignore the public's right to information, and intentionally distract attention from relevant facts and from their own deep beliefs.These conclusions arise from the accumulated weight of evidence in what should be a broadening scandal emanating from the infamous New Black Panther Party voter-intimidation...

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights came out in December with a draft of its interim report on the New Black Panthers Party scandal. Earlier today a final report was posted on the commission's website, and with it, a flurry of rebuttals and separate statements from a number of the commissioners. The import of these statements should not be minimized. ~snip~As Gaziano and Heriot do, commissioner Peter Kirsanow (a Republican appointee) goes through the evidence of malfeasance by an Obama political appointee, Julie Fernandes: Mr. [Chris] Coates [who headed the NBPP trial team] came forward and testified to the...

The Black Panther voter-intimidation scandal is approaching the boiling point on four different burners. Evidence grows that the Justice Department is using illegitimate means to keep a lid on legitimate investigations. Because his department can’t be trusted to police itself, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. needs to appoint a special counsel. On Wednesday, Judicial Watch - a private watchdog - filed a brief in its case seeking release of official memoranda, arguing that government stonewalling, “is about political interference in [Justice’s] decision-making process and [the department‘s] efforts to avoid public scrutiny of that interference.” Most abused is the “deliberative...

The Holder Justice Department declares open season on big city police departments In 2000, a deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration slapped the Los Angeles Police Department with federal oversight. A 1994 law gives the Justice Department the authority to seek control of police agencies that have engaged in a “pattern or practice” of constitutional violations. Justice’s attorneys never uncovered any systemic constitutional abuses in the LAPD as required by the 1994 law, despite having commandeered hundreds of thousands of documents (and having lost 10 boxes of sensitive records). Nevertheless, for the next decade the LAPD would operate under...

Former attorney general Michael Mukasey is not prone to hyperbole. He’s a former federal judge, a meticulous lawyer, and, as he proved in succeeding Alberto Gonzales, a skilled administrator who restored morale to a Justice Department demoralized by scandals (real or concocted). He is also obviously nonplussed by the performance of his successor, Attorney General Eric Holder. In a far-ranging interview, he candidly asserts that Holder’s conduct in several key respects has been “amazing.” That’s not meant as a compliment.Mukasey, who presided over the trial of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, is as experienced as any American jurist...

Justice Department whistle-blower J. Christian Adams says Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. "tampered" with two ongoing investigations into voter-intimidation by members of the New Black Panther Party. Tampering or not, Mr. Holder clearly prejudiced the case by publicly misrepresenting it. "There is no 'there' there," Mr. Holder told the New York Times last month about the Black Panther scandal. "The notion that this made-up controversy leads to a belief that this Justice Department is not color-blind in enforcement of civil rights laws is simply not supported by the facts. All I have on my side with regard to that...

Right Turn has obtained the first oversight letter from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) issued to the Justice Department. While he was in the minority, Smith labored, largely unsuccessfully, on the committee to convince the Democratic chairman to investigate a range of issues, including detainee policy and New Black Panther Party case. He now has the authority to schedule hearings, call witnesses and subpoena documents. In a five-page letter, Smith notes that there has been "little oversight" as to how the civil rights division has used its budget increases ($22 million in FYI 2010 and $17 million requested...

Sometimes politicians make the mistake of listening to their staff at their own peril. Eric Holder is making that mistake when it comes to some of the biggest scandals on his watch, such as the dismissal of the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. Holder’s interview with Charlie Savage of the New York Times shows that he has adopted a dug-in partisan position instead of a cautious and reasoned one. For an attorney general facing increased scrutiny from Congress, this partisan approach is damaging to the Department, and probably to Holder’s tenure as attorney general.In the...

The Justice Department stonewalled efforts by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to investigate the dismissal of a civil complaint against the New Black Panther Party, leaving open the question of whether the department is willing to pursue civil rights cases "in which whites were the perceived victims and minorities the alleged wrongdoers." In a 144-page report completed in November and released over the weekend, the commission said its lengthy investigation had uncovered "numerous specific examples of open hostility and opposition" within the department's Civil Rights Division to pursuing cases in which whites were the victims. ~snip~ "What was not...

Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine should finish one major piece of business before his announced retirement next month: the investigation into Justice's Civil Rights Division.On Sept. 12, Mr. Fine announced that while he's precluded by law from investigating a "specific piece of litigation" such as the Black Panther voter-intimidation case, "we do have the authority to conduct [a] broader program review ... regarding the Civil Rights Division's enforcement of voting rights laws." Mr. Fine vowed to review "whether the Voting Section has enforced the civil rights laws in a non-discriminatory manner." Substantial testimony, backed by a record of...

The conservative majority of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights today voted to approve what they are now calling an "interim" report on the Justice Department's handling of the voter intimidation case against members of the New Black Panther Party.Commissioners voted 5-2 along ideological lines to approve the report on their investigation, which started back in the summer of 2009. The vote came after talks between DOJ and the Commission to allow officials to testify on the case broke down because, the Justice Department says, of the "unilateral" terms set up by the Commission.Michael Yaki, a Democrat on the...

The New Black Panther Party voter-intimidation case, which has rocked the Justice Department, will reach an important endpoint on November 19. At its regular business meeting tomorrow, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights will consider a draft report on its investigation of the Department’s scandalously politicized handling of the case. This case was unique in one vital aspect almost from its beginning — the existence of a visual recording of the New Black Panthers in their paramilitary, fascist-style uniforms, one holding a night stick, blocking the entrance to a polling place. That kind of direct evidence is very unusual...

The Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) cannot shake the New Black Panther Party scandal. Every week new revelations emerge about the racism and political favoritism that are corrupting our nation’s top law enforcement agency.This week, we released to the public brand new documents from the Obama DOJ that provide further evidence that top political appointees at the DOJ were intimately involved in the decision to dismiss the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. And just like previous documents we’ve uncovered, this new evidence directly contradicts sworn testimony by Thomas Perez, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil...

Under attorney general Eric Holder, the Obama Department of Justice (DOJ) is dangerously politicized, radically leftist, racialist, lawless, and at times corrupt. The good news is that it's also often incompetent. This means the Holderites can bungle their leftist lawlessness so badly that even the most reticent of judges are obliged to smack them down. The abuses by the Holderites are legion. They range from DOJ's infamous abandonment of the already-won voter-intimidation case against several New Black Panthers to multi-faceted assaults on traditional standards of voting rights and obligations; from a growing list of lawsuits deliberately destructive of border security...

 Michael Yaki is wrong about this statement to CNN: Yaki said those staffers, Christopher Coates and J. Christian Adams, failed to speak up during earlier allegations of bias during the Bush administration.  "Neither one of them saw fit to come forward to this commission or to Congress over even more egregious acts of voter intimidation" against Latinos and African-Americans, he said.  "I think the hypocrisy is quite evident to the American people and we're going to make that evident in our remarks," Yaki said. His statement is false.  He doesn't know what he is talking about.  Christopher Coates very...